Cal Banyan: Hello everybody, Cal Banyan here, Cal Banyan’s Hypnosis, Etc. and I’m back with Erika Flint doing Part Two of a series on Using Insight Hypnosis, hypnosis processes that generate insight and how that can cause you to have permanent long lasting effect on your clients. And really, almost instantaneously, change the way that they perceive themselves, the world, and that changes behavior and feelings.

Let me tell you about Erika Flint. Erika Flint, well, she is just about one year in the profession. She is heading up to the top of the heap. Look at her, she’s giving back to the profession. She’s just only been in it for one year. After graduating and getting certified, she then went and studied the 5-PATH 2.0 DVD set, took the exam, became certified as a 5-PATHer, and then just a few weeks ago went to the live class online and got the Week of Power under her belt, and is now being certified as an instructor for us.

Now, her background is in the tech industry as a software engineer and problem solver, but she got bored with all that kind of stuff and decided it was time to work with the greatest micro maximum processor in the world, and that’s the human mind. And gosh, I just think we’re going to see great things from her. I wish I was doing such great things in my first year. How are you doing, Erika?

Erika Flint: Hey, Cal. I’m doing great, thank you. That was a very nice introduction and yeah, I feel really fortunate and happy to be here with you today, talking with you. And part of the reason, of course, I’m here is because I have learned from you. Eighteen years in the profession, right? That’s amazing. And you are giving back all the time. So let me tell everybody a little bit about you, Cal.

Cal is a hypnosis celebrity because of his fame in the profession not just because of all the hundreds of training videos he has produced to date, 370 plus videos. He also gives back. So a lot of the training that Cal does, it’s what I would have wanted to know when I got started and so that’s where I got started taking 5-PATH. Now Cal is a celebrity and authority because he’s received almost every award and recognition in the profession. And his books have made him the authority on hypnosis and hypnotherapy. One of my favorite books that he has written and authored, The Secret Language of Feelings, is amazing. I give it to almost all of my clients and he’s the person that people go to, to understand hypnosis that works.

He’s the trainer of some of the best in our profession and he’s still teaching, speaking, writing, and seeing private clients, and making public appearances. I had a class with him a few weeks ago. It was amazing. I learned probably just as much in the second time I took this class as I did the first. That’s how much information, wonderful information that you’re going to use in your office with your clients as soon as you leave, okay?

And he’s had a profound impact on me and my practice. It’s probably obvious because I’ve learned so much from him and I’ve been able to take from the classroom to the office, everything that I’ve learned from him. So thank you for that Cal, very much.

Cal Banyan: Oh, thank you very much for the introduction. And wasn’t it great, in class, watching me do time tunneling live and changing lives right there in front of everybody?

Erika Flint: It was so impressive. And this is really the true mark of a professional when you make it seem so easy, right? It just seemed so easy the way you are so good at it. And then I’m able to go and do it with my clients, too, right? And in moments, you’re able to get insights out of people, right in class there, and that’s kind of what inspired me to do this episode which is part two of the episode that we’re doing on Insight Therapy because I had insights in class with you, did I?

Cal Banyan: You sure did. I didn’t want to put you in a spot.

Erika Flint: Well, yeah. Well, it was a really profound moment for me, having some insights and so I understand what it’s like for our clients to have these insights. So I wanted to encourage other hypnotists out there, if you’re not doing insight based therapy, you’re missing out, right? Because if you’re just doing direct suggestion, those changes are a couple days, maybe a week, you really got to be doing insight therapy. The changes are permanent.

Cal Banyan: All right, let’s rock on. Let’s do it.

Erika Flint: So today we’re going to go into a little bit different aspect of insight therapy. We talked about it last week, so I won’t go into all of the details like we did last time. So I want to get started on a case history. So I have a client, okay? She comes in for weight loss and now she tells me, first of all, because I have a question about this later. She says she always self-sabotages. She sabotages herself. I’m going to ask you a question about that in just a minute Cal, but first, let me continue.

She does great for a while and then she gets in her own way, all right. So during the age regression, the feeling that comes up is feeling unloved and inadequate. So kind of skipping over some things and getting right to the point, it turns out that she’s the first child. Her mom has another baby, and all of a sudden, as a little girl, like two years old, now mom’s not paying attention to her anymore, okay, because there’s a new baby in the house, right?

So through the insight therapy using the informed child technique, the client realizes that, you know what, her mom has always loved her, she just had a new baby, right? We can all understand that. But for her, it was so different because, first of all, she realized that and then she felt it. So that was the difference. She might have known that, even thinking about it, that, oh, yeah, of course, mom was busy with the baby. But when we do that insight therapy and we do the informed child technique, and the client is there feeling it and reliving it all over again, they actually feel it. And that’s what really makes a big difference using insight therapy. What do you think about that, Cal?

Cal Banyan: Well, as you’re talking about that, I’m thinking about the video that I show in class and in the video of me working with Michelle. It was a very similar kind of situation. And here’s from the child’s perspective, that they were center of the universe or at least the center of the family, the little one comes along, the new little brother or little sister, and all of a sudden all the parental energy shifts over to them, and the child thinks, wow, all kinds of crazy stuff. They might think I did something wrong or they never did love me, or they don’t love me, and if they don’t take care of me, maybe I’m going to get lost or stolen, or die, and all of that stuff is probably not true.

And how do we know if it’s true or not? Because grown up has had a lifetime of experience with those parents and in that environment, and in that family. And they can say with complete confidence and truthfulness what that child needs to hear to have the insights that are life changing, right?

Erika Flint: That’s right and the reason I wanted to point out this story in particular is because I want to highlight that, you know what, the insight, the story, the ISE, the initial sensitizing event that we find, it’s not always this huge monumental thing in somebody’s life, is it Cal? Sometimes it’s a very simple moment in their life.

Cal Banyan: Well, the thing is, yeah, it’s not this always has to be this huge thing. It’s just something that shifts how they think. And when they shift how they think, it changes how you feel. I’ll sometimes talk about X happens, that leads to giving meaning to it. So something happens, you give meaning to it, that’s what you think or believe, and then that creates an emotion, and then a feeling. And the emotions and feelings drive behavior and the behavior is either habitual or it is responsive. And most of the stuff that clients come to us to see are these automatic, habitual feelings and behaviors that we can get them out of that cycle with some insight. Cool! Keep going.

Erika Flint: All right, so now I want to ask you a question about this comment that the client makes about self-sabotaging. And it’s kind of a side topic, I guess, but it’s been coming up a lot for me. People will comment that they are self-sabotaging. What do you think about that? Should we even consider that or what should we make note of as the hypnotherapist when our clients tell us that they are self-sabotaging?

Cal Banyan: Okay, so I don’t believe our clients self-sabotage. I think that is what they think and it’s kind of an ad hoc thing. So what I’m saying is the mind is programmed to move towards pleasure and success, and getting needs filled, but what’s happening is they’re doing something or they’re feeling some emotion that is getting in the way. Saboteurs, their mission is to mess things up. Sabotage always has the intent of hurting the situation. If you’ve heard of sabotage a project, your intent is to mess up the project and to hurt those people associated with the project or the company or whatever. We don’t really self-sabotage. We don’t have the intent to hurt ourselves. That’s just not the way human beings are wired.

What will happen is we’ll have some program that is messing things up. That’s not the intent, if it is, and then we label it self-sabotaging. Really, what’s going on is we’re behaving as if we were self-sabotaging, but what we really have is just this program that’s running, this feeling that’s caught inside of us, or this habit that’s caught inside of us, or this belief that’s caught inside of us at the subconscious level that’s kind of throwing a wrench in the works. But a saboteur purposefully puts that in. Now, what’s the difference? What’s the big deal?

Well, the big deal is intent. If you are purposefully hurting yourself, if that’s what you believe, well, then you could be angry at yourself. But if you realize that you’re not trying to hurt yourself, it’s just this habit, it removes the self, a loathing or self-hatred, or the anger at the self instantly through insight. You see that?

Erika Flint: That’s a really good point, Cal, and it makes me think of how our minds constantly are trying to make sense of things, right? So if we can’t understand why we would be behaving and it appears as though we’re self-sabotaging, our minds will label it as something in order to kind of make some sense out of the things that are going on in our life, right?

Cal Banyan: Exactly. The conscious mind does not like not being able to make sense of things because if things don’t make sense, then you’re not really able to respond in a way that can satisfy your needs, wants, and desires like, for example, safety and security. So if you’re thinking that things don’t make sense, it can’t respond. And this all happens so fast at the subconscious level as I can’t make sense of what’s happening, so I don’t know how to respond. And if I don’t know how to respond, then something bad could happen, and that generates the emotion of fear. But we would much rather come up with some theory about what’s going on so that we can at least have some idea of how to respond, so we have some feeling of control and security in the situation. Got it?

Erika Flint: Yep. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And so I want to ask you another question here, another thing that tends to come up that I have noticed when we’re dealing with insight therapy which, of course, we’re trying to do that all the time, right? In every session, I think, is that sometimes — and insight therapy really does, it enables change to take place quicker and easier than most people realize. And this is where I’m going with this because sometimes clients don’t think that it can . . . they’re like, it can’t be that easy. That’s way too easy for me to make this huge change in my life that I’ve been suffering from for 30 years. There is no way that I could come in here, in your office for one and a half hours, and that’s it. So I just wanted to get your thoughts on how do we ensure that the client understands that this insight is really different than anything they’ve ever done before and it’s so impactful. And that’s why, and maybe even, it seems easy, but it’s really not. It’s just a really important way to go about doing things, right?

Cal Banyan: Now, are you talking about after the session, they’ve had the insight or are you talking about before?

Erika Flint: I’m talking about after the session. So, for example, I have a client, they come in, they’ve been suffering for something for decades, right? And they’re feeling better when they come back in and they share with me that they can’t believe that the change happened that quickly, that easily. So they’re almost questioning that it was that easy, that anything that was 40 years of their life could be helped in an hour and a half using insight therapy.

Cal Banyan: Right, yeah, I’ve seen this and it’s almost humorous and that is I’ve had people come in with severe fear problems, like fear of flying or severe problems with substance abuse issues and this kind of thing. And then, we go through the process and after even the very first insight work we start doing, they start feeling this huge shift. And certainly, by the time we’re through 5-PATH, it’s a thing of the past that you’ll actually have clients . . . because the mind, like I just said, it wants to come up with a reason and it just doesn’t seem reasonable that after decades, sometimes, of dealing with this problem and maybe even incarceration, maybe even institutionalization, that all of a sudden, they could be free of it. And they will actually begin to deny that the problem was ever that bad in the first place because that’s how the rational mind tries to make sense of it. Does that make sense?

Erika Flint: Absolutely and that has happened to me too, where clients assume that, oh, it must not have been all that bad at all because it was too easy to fix it. It must be harder, it must take more time, it must take more effort.

Cal Banyan: Yep, exactly.

Erika Flint: Right.

Cal Banyan: Good! Yep, yep, what else you got for me?

Erika Flint: Well, so then after they have this insight and you’ve talked about it on the last episode, so they have the insight and then you have the questions, all right? So you ask your client to put an ending on this sentence, “I have changed because now I know… and I’ve changed because now I feel…” And so my question for you is sometimes you have to help our client have the insight and connect the dots, so I was hoping that you could share something about that. When you have a client who isn’t quite as . . . They’re not getting it quite as quickly, maybe they’re tired. Who knows what the situation is, but you, as a therapist, are seeing the insight sooner than your client is. So can you share some help how we can help our clients see the insight and connect those dots?

Cal Banyan: Right, well again, we’ll take age regression as an example. So we’ve gone through into the past, uncovered the subsequent sensitizing events and the ISE, and we’re back there. And we’re seeing that the child has made some errors, but the adult aspect is really having trouble verbalizing or putting together what the insight is for the child. And I’ll just say, “Grown-up, let me ask you something. How does this fit? Does this fit?” Okay? And I ask them in that kind of questioning way. And they say, “Oh, yeah. That does fit.” “Okay, well, and how about this?” So I’ll just say, “What do you think of this idea?”

So it stopped, it looks like what they should have gotten out of it than I’m getting from my kind of objective view of what I’ve seen. And the client will usually go along with that, but sometimes they’ll go, “Oh, that’s not exactly it.” And I say, “Well, what exactly does that child need to know?” So some coaching, running some ideas by him, this is especially done when I’m working with children. Because we work with adults, you’ve got the adult to go back and inform the child, but if I’m working with an eight-, nine-, ten year old child, they don’t have the degree of insight.

So when I’ve got the, for lack of a better word, the adult aspect of that client, which is actually just ten years old, needing to talk to the three-, four-, or five-year-old child that’s experiencing the ISE, I’ll just say, “Ten, how does this fit? Does this fit? Does this sound good? Would this have been helpful if you knew this back then?” And we’ll work it out and come up with the agreed upon message or insight is and then I’ll just simply say, “Would you like to tell five?” referring to the five-year-old aspect of themselves or “Do you want me to do it?” Okay? And if they’re verbal enough then they’ll do it and I can continue to coach that. Or if someone says, “Okay, you do it.” I’ll go, “Blah, blah, blah,” and I’ll tell the regressed aspect that’s about to go through the ISE whatever the insight is that we agreed upon and then I’ll get it validated.

And I’ll say, “Okay, Ten, is there anything you want to add to that or have I got it all?” So that the older aspect of the client, whatever it is, ten or adult, is able to validate what I said because once they do that they’ve accepted it. You see what I mean?

Erika Flint: Right, yeah and I like how you are using kind of an inquiry form to help coach them along to get them to connect those dots themselves. And like you said, at times it’s not always exactly right, but if it’s not, then it helps them to think about, okay, well, not exactly, but this way, right? And so that really helps. And then after that, Cal, you’ve talked about this before, the segue. Right now that you’ve had these insights, you’re going to be able to accept these suggestions more powerfully than ever before, more permanently than ever before, and then we’re able to tie in the insights using the segue to the benefits and the suggestions, the benefits of why they came in to see you in the first place. They’re able to tie it all up so that when they leave they’re feeling like, “Wow! I had this amazing insight today and because of that amazing insight I’m just going to get everything that I came in here for.”

Cal Banyan: And you know what Erika, doing that kind of work is not really work. You don’t get tired. You don’t get exhausted when you’re doing that kind of stuff. It’s so invigorating to be a part of it. All right, please wrap it up. We’re out of time.

Erika Flint: I get inspired by my clients every day. That’s why I really wanted to share this topic with you, Cal, and bring this to everyone. And just I hope people can tell that this is something that I really feel passionate about and I love doing this work exactly like you said, Cal, because it’s very inspirational in helping people through this process using insight therapy.

Cal Banyan: Well, you do a great job. Okay, thank you Erika. Hey, everybody, I want to see you at the National Guild of Hypnotists Convention. Erika’s going to be speaking and Brenda’s going to be speaking, and Celeste, all of our previous co-hosts. So all those ladies, the hypno ladies are going to be speaking at the convention. I’m going to be speaking on a couple of topics. One of them is the Universal Script and the other is a two-day certification course, post-convention, so that you can get certified and really get some of the insight scoop. There’s only so much we can get into a podcast. That’s always kind of like the tip of the iceberg, but I hope I keep you interested and excited about this very interesting and exciting profession. Okay, that’s it, Cal Banyan signing off.